An exuberant hunger drives the characters of Sang Young Park’s beautiful novel
, people who are young, broke and eager to indulge in the many pleasures of Seoul, be they carnal or culinary. “I would do anything I was told by whoever bought me a drink,” explains the book’s narrator, a gay university student named Young, in an early chapter. “I’d never refused alcohol or raw fish in my life,” he says later, describing a date with an older man who covers the bill.
I know this appetite, and the wily calculus that goes along with it, all too well from my own youth in Seoul. I wanted a taste of the good life despite my paltry journalist’s salary . But of course, the stakes are higher for Young as a queer man in a society that marginalizes and carries stigmas against people like him.
And South Korean readers have devoured Park’s work, a necessary, exciting addition to Korean literature, making him a national bestseller in his home country. There’s a generosity and biting humor that imbues his stories, with glittering descriptions that render our food-and-drink-obsessed culture in liquid-crystal high definition.
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